What Made Me A Reader – World Book Day 2020

Was there a book you remember reading that made you the bookworm that you are now? I have loved reading for as long as I can remember. But I remember that reading The Magic Faraway Tree was what cemented my love for reading. I read that book so many times that I can still remember parts of the book and the illustrations even though I haven’t looked at the book in years.

I remember my parents taking all 5 of us sisters to the library every Saturday morning and me basically just spending hours there reading and finding new books to fall in love with. I found so many of my favourite childhood books in the library. From The Secret Seven, Artemis Fowl, Alex Rider, Cirque Du Freak and so much more. All 5 of us sisters are readers now because of how much time we spent around books.

Our parents are also readers so that I also helped us to become readers as books were always part of our life. Our parents books filled our house and my parents house has bookcases upon bookcases in every room and we still moved our parents older books in the attic as they don’t read as much now as they used to so we could make space for our books.

As all 5 of us were readers and have similar tastes in books we would discuss books together and especially us 3 older ones as teens would all fight over who would get to read the single copy our dad bought us first. I won because I am the oldest (it’s one of the few privileges the eldest has and I took full advantage). We fangirled about Harry Potter in our teens and discussed theories and had heated debates about our favourite characters.

Even now as we all read similar books we will still stay up late discussing and arguing about books and have all the bookish discussions. It’s like having our own book club. We also recommend (read: force) each other to read our favourite books so we can discuss it with them and we go to book events together and YALC too.

I know that for me being surrounded by books and growing up having my sisters to discuss books with has made me the reader that I am.

Books I Want From The Villains Point Of View

I used to always root for the heroes when I read books but these YA books that I’ve been reading lately have me wanting to know more about the villains or straight up just rooting for them!

So I thought I would write about it on here as I would love to know all of your views!

Villains are being written in more complex and intriguing ways that makes me so interested in learning about them. And we’ve been getting some really great origin stories for fairy tale villains too! So it’s made me want to see how these villains and how they became who we see in the books!

So here are some villains I would love a point of view from:

The Darkling from the Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo

It’s no secret that I am completely and entirely in love with the Darkling. I mean you know aside from him being a mass murderer. Anyways I just want more Darkling okay?! I want to know his story from when he was a little boy to all those years he lived growing more and powerful and how he became the man that we met in Shadow and Bone. He deserves his own book!

Sebastian Morganstern from TMI by Cassandra Clare

Look he had no chance in life. His dad completely screwed him over and from before he was even born. Yet he was still a really interesting villain and I want to know what it was like for him growing up isolated and alone.

Luke Castellen from Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan

I mean yes, he did make some really bad decisions which led to people dying but I still couldn’t help but feel for him. He has such a tragic story and in the end he ended up saving everyone. So I would love to read more about his life before he met Percy and how he ended up the boy we meet. I would also love to see the series from his point of view.

Bellatrix LeStrange from Harry Potter by JK Rowling

She is terrifying but I still love her! She is such an interesting character and I think it would be so interesting to see things from her point of view. Especially as we would be able to see a lot more of the death eaters and how they functioned.

The Jackal from Red Rising by Pierce Brown

Another villain who was so interesting to read about. Especially as he was the twin of one of the heroines. How did they become so different? I just want to know more about him. It would especially be interesting to read red rising from his point of view.

The Commandant from An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

She is absolutely terrifying and I still cannot get over how much she hated her own son. But I do want to know more about her. I want to know who Elias’s father is, I want to know how she became so terrifying and I would love to see more about her and Laia’s mother.

So here are the villains I would love to see a point of view from or even their own book!

What villains would you love to see a point of view from?

Friday Favourites – Character Deaths

This is hosted by Something of the Book who created this tag out of a love for lists. There are different topics for us all to be able to take part and you can find the prompts here. There isn’t a specific number of favourites so it’s entirely up to you how many you share. You can share your most or least favourites too!

Just to let you all know that this post could potentially be full of spoilers if you haven’t read the book as I will be discussing characters who have died.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

When I’m reading and I am loving the book, I get so invested in the characters that the death of my favourite characters completely destroy me. I also put off reading books because I am scared of reading who will die. Anyone else do that?

So this post will be all about character deaths that I am still not over.

1 Will Herondale from The Infernal Devices – the epilogue of Clockwork Princess completely and utterly destroyed me. I was a sobbing mess. I adore this trilogy but I just can’t bring myself to read that last book. And whenever Jem is mentioned in other books it always reminds me of Will’s death.

2 The 13 from Throne of Glass – the absolute worst part of Kingdom of Ash was reading the scene where Manon and Abraxos had to watch the 13 sacrifice themselves to win the battle. I had to stop reading because although I had a feeling some of them would die, I was not expecting Manon to lose all of her family.

3 Matthias from Six of Crows – he had so much potential! I adored him and Nina and how much they helped each other grow and change and omg I could not deal when he died.

4 Ragnor from Red Rising – he did not need to die! He could have helped bring about so much change and he was one of the few who was truly Darrow’s friend and this trilogy has made me suffer so much.

5 Jason Grace from Heroes of Olympus – although he was only in the third Trials of Apollo book he died at the end of it and I was so completely shocked that I had to reread it. He was never my favourite character but he died to save the life of Piper and he didn’t even get to meet Leo and omg middle grade books are not supposed to make me sob like this okay!

6 Holland from A Darker Shade of Magic – when I first met him I did not like him but by the end I was totally rooting for him and I was so sad that he died. He had such a tragic life and he deserved to be happy! Also it will be bittersweet reading the new trilogy because he won’t be in it *sobs*

7 Sam Cortland from Throne of Glass – he was already dead in Throne of Glass but we meet him in the novellas set a year or so before Throne of Glass and I quickly fell in love with. I mourned his loss in every single book and every single time Aelin mentioned him. He would have been a great King of Terrasen and I will die on this hill!

8 Kate Harker from This Savage Song – urm excuse me but August and Kate had finally found a true friend in each other and then Schwab goes and kills Kate in Our Dark Duet?! Another book which left me in tears.

9 Sam from Rebel of the Sands – I did not expect him to die so his death was even more of a shock. And it was left ambiguous until the very end that he had died. He deserved to live and be happy with Shahrzad!

10 Every single Harry Potter death – don’t even get me started on these books and the number of people JK Rowling murdered. Teenage me was not ready for that. Dobby, Fred, Remus, Tonks, Sirius and so many more. I just can’t….

So these are the worst deaths I have had to deal with in books. Pretty sure I will be adding to these in the next year as there are a few books in which I am pretty certain will have character deaths.

What character deaths were the worst for you? Do you put off reading a book because you’re afraid of who will die?

Top 10 Tuesday – Unpopular Bookish Opinions

Hey booknerds! I’m taking part in another week of Top Ten Tuesday!

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. You can find more information here

So these are my unpopular bookish opinions and well…don’t hate me because I know that a lot of you love these but I just don’t. Sorry!

1 I cannot stand Feyre and Rhysand from ACOTAR. I never liked Feyre and well, Rhysand’s character was problematic from the beginning. By the time I read ACOFAS I could not stand them AT ALL! Like seriously I do not want to see them again in any future books. Just let them go have babies and play happy families somewhere far away.

2 I am also not a fan of Rowan and Aelin from Throne of Glass. While I don’t hate them I still don’t see why everyone loves them so much, especially Rowan. He’s so meh. I think I just cannot stand overprotective, overly jealous, macho alpha males.

3 On the other hand I do love Chaol from Throne of Glass and I feel like he doesn’t deserve the hate he gets. I really liked his character and his bromance with Dorian and I really loved Tower of Dawn, even though it felt more like Yrene’s story than his.

4 I am not a fan of John Green books. I just cannot get into them at all and by this popint I’ve given up even trying.

5 Another popular character that I don’t like is Carden. I especially do not like that him and Jude are meant to be love interests because he has bullied her for so long and why? Oh because he liked her. Urm hell no! That is not okay!

6 I have no interest in reading or watching Game of Thrones. That’s all you get from me.

7 I also have no interest in reading or watching Outlander. I mean I tried to watch a couple episodes but it was so violent and so much sexual assault that I just couldn’t stomach it, no matter how interesting the storyline is.

8 Deckled edges look pretty but are an actual nightmare when you try and read the actual book.

9 Snape got the redemption arc that Draco deserved. I’m still salty about Harry naming his kid after him.

10 And the last one, I did not enjoy The Night Circus. I really struggled to get into it, I found the writing confusing and I got pretty bored reading it.

So there you have it! My unpopular bookish opinions!

Share yours with me in the comments and you can of course disagree with mine and others but please be polite and respectful of each other!

Top 5 Wednesday – SFF Characters I Would be BFFs With

Hey booknerds! It’s another Top 5 Wednesday post! This is hosted by Sam over on Thoughts on Tomes where you share you top 5 for the chosen topic for that week. You can check out each weeks topic over on Goodreads.

This week I’m sharing some characters I would love to be friends with! I adore these characters and their personalities, and I feel like if they were real we would probably be friends and bond over something!

1 Cress from The Lunar Chronicles – she is a total fangirl and I would definitely bond while fangirling with her

2 Zainab from The City of Brass – she’s so sassy and fun and I would love to hang out with her

3 Shahrzad from The Wrath and the Dawn – I would love to be friends with her I feel like it would be really fun and exciting

4 Amani from Rebel of the Sands – I think it could be so much fun to hang out with her

5 Hermione from Harry Potter – I have always wanted to be friends with her since I was a kid!

What fictional characters would you want to be friends with?